Reading of recently deceased British designer Alexander McQueen’s dazzling debt to fashion, in David Brown‘s report McQueen’s legacy uncertain as accounts show fashion house had £32 million liabilities, in the February, 18, 2010 edition of The Times of London: “His dramatic creations dazzled the catwalks for a decade, but the legacy of the fashion designer Alexander McQueen could be decided on the basis of a balance sheet. An indication of the future of his fashion label will be given this morning — a week after the designer’s apparent suicide — by the French luxury group that controls his name. McQueen’s eponymous brand struggled to make a profit and had millions of pounds of liabilities at the time of his death. Analysis of the most recent accounts of McQueen’s British companies show that their current liabilities totalled more than £32 million. Although founded in 2001, the brand did not break even until 2007 and made a relatively small profit in 2008, before the world banking crisis that hit many high-end fashion companies.”… To read the full article, please click here.

“In fashion terms, it’s hard when you have a woman like Isabella who was so strong in her public image but couldn’t stand her ground in her personal life. I know the other side. She would say that fashion killed her. But, also, she allowed that to happen in a lot of ways. She got herself some good jobs, and she let some of them go. But that’s just the nature of Isabella. You’ve got to let someone like that be herself. And just accept them. You could sit Isabella down and tell her what she should do with her life and her money and all that, but actually getting the job and holding it down… She would never understand that all it came down to was: ‘You just are, Isabella. And that is your commodity.’ She never understood that because of her insecurities. She would let people play her, and she wouldn’t play herself.” — Alexander McQueen, commenting on Isabella Blow, The New York Times